


living a law just short of delusion

by humanveil



Series: The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black [7]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, F/M, Pre-Canon, Pureblood Society (Harry Potter)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-30
Updated: 2020-07-30
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:21:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25050820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/humanveil/pseuds/humanveil
Summary: Control, propriety, and something like love.
Relationships: Lucius Malfoy/Narcissa Black Malfoy
Series: The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/807951
Comments: 6
Kudos: 39





	living a law just short of delusion

**Author's Note:**

> okay, so. when i have bad writer’s block, i’ll write fic with a pen and paper to see if a different approach works. this is one of those fics, only i’d forgotten about it until i came across it today. i didn’t edit it too much, so it’s not the best, but i hope you like it all the same!
> 
> re. the alcoholism warning: it refers to lucius’ mother, not lucius, and there’s pretty shit opinions/reactions that surround it, including abraxas using imperio to keep her ~in line. i’m also terribly sorry if i butchered the french. i did ask a friend, but neither of us are native/fluent. if you spot a mistake, please let me know!

Lucius stares at himself in the mirror, hands at his throat as he fiddles with the collar of his robe. It runs high on his neck, the hem a silver stitch that itches when it touches his skin but sparkles in the light. The robe itself is a midnight blue; it falls to the floor and trails behind him, regal-esque. He looks every bit the wealthy pure-blood he is.

“Lucius.”

His mother’s voice. He hears her approaching, knows the careful click of heels on polished concrete. She appears at the door as he turns his head to look.

“Mon fils,” she greets, dark lips twisting in a smile. “Are you ready?”

He hums, hands falling from his throat to hang properly at his sides. His mother comes to stand beside him, her cold fingers tucking loose hair behind his ear as she looks at them both in the mirror.

“Very handsome,” she compliments, and leans to kiss his cheek. Lucius counts to three before he slips away, shifting so they’re face to face.

“And you,” he says, half-joking. He smirks even before his mother corrects him: _handsome_ is not a feminine term, and not one his mother considers a compliment when directed at herself. “Beautiful, then,” he amends.

He adjusts his robe so it flows more freely and looks his mother in the eye. The pale green that stares back is glassy. It’d be unnoticeable to anyone not looking for it, but Lucius has learnt the importance of recognising the signs. Lightly glassy and they’re still in safe territory, flushed cheeks and they’re teetering the edge of disaster, breath that smells of peppermint—the tell-tale sign his mother has tried to cover up her consumption—and they’re at the point of intervention. He wonders, idly, where they’ll end up tonight.

His mother smiles. “Come, now,” she says, and reaches for his elbow. “You don’t want us to be late.”

“No,” Lucius agrees, voice soft. He takes the lead and escorts her out.

Late, he knows, is something one must never be.

* * *

“You wore the blue,” Abraxas greets him. “Good.”

One sweeping glance is all Lucius gets. He is old enough by now to be trusted with these things; to mess up something as simple as an ostentatious dinner would be nothing short of idiotic, and Abraxas Malfoy is not a man known for indulging stupidity. Lucius nods anyway, watching as his father shrinks a stack of parchment and folds it into his robe pocket.

“Cygnus is holding it as his house,” Abraxas reminds them, _it_ being little more than a diversion tactic advertised as a charity gala and wrapped with a pretty bow of pure-blood importance. Lucius knows it’ll be dead boring, but he always knows the necessity of it. He’s learnt, first hand, how throwing money at people will make them shut up about your family’s failings; Cygnus and Druella Black are hardly the first to do it, and nor will they be the last.

“Dreadful, isn’t it,” his mother says, the sentiment ignored as Abraxas looks at his watch, then his wife, then his son.

“You can Apparate yourself, yes?” he asks. He doesn’t wait for an answer, Lucius’ _of course_ ignored as Abraxas turns to assess his wife. “I’ll take you Side-Along, Anaïs,” he settles, no room for argument as he grabs her hand where it rests on Lucius’ arm.

Anaïs goes to him without complaint.

The three of them disappear just as the clock strikes seven.

* * *

Lucius is greeted first by Rabastan Lestrange, who skips formalities all together and leans in to whisper, “Have you seen Bella, yet?”

There’s an underlying amusement to it, one that doesn’t bode well for Lucius. He shakes his head and Rabastan grins, straightening up.

“She’s gone berserk,” he explains. It isn’t exactly surprising; Lucius would argue _berserk_ is Bellatrix’s natural state. “I wouldn’t rile her, if I were you.”

Lucius’ snort is dismissive. “Her sister’s filthy boyfriend is hardly my fault,” he says. From the corner of his eye, he sees his mother greet Druella, the other woman passing along a flute of champagne before Anaïs has even kissed her cheek. It looks rather purposeful, he thinks, and files it away for later.

“Me, either,” Rabastan agrees, drawing back his attention. “But I’ve been dodging Crucios all week.”

Closest in age, he and Lucius had been the top picks for Andromeda’s future husband. To be bested by a _Mudblood_ … Lucius expels the thought. It isn’t worth fretting over, especially not when he’d never wanted Andromeda to begin with. The girl was too brash. Too obvious with her rebellion. She lacked the subtly and cunning Lucius preferred—how she’d ever made Slytherin, he couldn’t say.

Rabastan pats him on the back, urging him onward. “Good luck,” he says, a laugh to it.

Lucius ignores it. He doesn’t care about the Black family drama; truthfully, he doesn’t care about the Black family at all.

There’s only one exception.

* * *

Dinner is a tedious affair.

Lucius is forced to sit between Priscilla Parkinson and Dayanara Mallaway, their placement on the opposite end from where the Black family sits, his parents not far behind them. He’d thought it was a mistake at first, had known it was, later, when he’d caught the look Bellatrix had given him, as if being forced to smile politely while his companions chattered inanely was a type of divine punishment for his imagined wrongs. But Lucius is nothing if not diplomatic. It’s been bred into him from an early age: propriety over sincerity. He can feign respect when he has to.

He cuts his meal into small bites and says as little as he needs to. He nods when expected, his questions filled with empty words, their replies filtering through one ear and out the other. All the while, his gaze drifts to the head of the table, where Narcissa sits by her father’s side. Her head is held high despite her spending half of dinner staring at the dining table, her fork held loosely in her hand. She eats under her mother’s critical eye and speaks only when spoken to, the responses she offers clipped and short. Lucius aches with the urge to approach her.

He keeps an eye on his mother, too. Her fingers pinch a wine glass, her pale cheeks flushed pink as she leans over Abraxas to speak to Walburga Black, voice louder than it needs to be. He catalogues the signs and catches his father’s eye, the look Abraxas gives him prompting a familiar type of dread to ripple through his stomach like the contents of a simmering cauldron. He tries his best to ignore it.

“Lucius?” Dayanara asks, her hand touching his arm. “Are you all right?”

He could kick himself; he’s gone too long without contributing. “Of course,” he lies easily. He flashes her a smile: the kind he’s learnt makes people swoon. It has the desired effect. “Now, where were we?”

* * *

Narcissa, when he finds her, is sitting on the balcony, a cocktail glass filled to the brim with chocolate held to her mouth as her head dips back, the pale expanse of her neck visible with her hair tied in a knot. She’s alone, shadowed in the half-dark of the mid-evening light. Lucius takes a moment to simply watch before approaching.

“Enjoying yourself?”

Narcissa doesn’t start. Instead, she swallows and straightens up, glass placed on the small table beside her. She runs her tongue across her bottom lip and licks away the chocolate left behind, the tip red and glistening when it peeks out between her teeth. Lucius follows the act with his eyes, suddenly hot beneath the collar.

Narcissa smiles with the left side of her mouth. “Hello to you, too,” she says, obviously teasing. He knows she knows the effect she has on him.

Lucius wants to kiss her but knows it wouldn’t be appropriate, so he bends at the waist and takes her hand instead. It’s brought to his mouth, his lips brushing over cold skin as he makes a point to look at her eyes.

“Are you alright?” he asks as he lowers her hand. What he wants to say is, _how are you holding up?_ Or perhaps, _how have they been treating you?_ But one doesn’t ask such things in public, not when the chance of being overheard is so high.

Narcissa doesn’t seem to have the same reservations. “Tonight,” she asks, “or in relation to Andromeda’s great betrayal?”

It’s said with a sarcastic tilt. Lucius arches an eyebrow.

“Both,” he says, and takes the seat beside her.

Narcissa snorts, soft and airy. There’s no humour to it. “Better than Bellatrix,” she tells him. She pauses, looking past the balcony’s opening to where her mother walks by, Mrs. Crabbe following behind. “And my parents, for that matter. Though I’m sure the current state of things has given that away.” 

Lucius can’t help his smile. Secluded as they are, he feels safe enough to reach forward and settle his hand above hers. To a bystander, it’d look as if he was simply touching her arm. “I did think it was strange,” he admits.

“It’s worse than _strange_ ,” Narcissa snaps, though the anger isn’t directed at him. There are small, irritated creases lining her forehead, her eyes alight with buried anger. “They’re only doing it in hopes of causing a bigger debacle, you know. Aunt Walburga suggested we get your mother drunk. Remember what happened last time?”

Lucius did, in fact, remember what happened last time. Not only had he been the one to escort his mother home, but he’d been ordered to deal with most of the aftermath as well: the task Abraxas’ idea of punishment for not ‘keeping his mother in line.’

He sighs. He’d suspected as much, and if not for the fact that he knows his father wouldn’t let it happen, he’d think it inevitable. Narcissa flips her hand in his, the anger draining as she links their fingers together.

“I’m sorry,” she says, rubbing her thumb back and forth over his skin. “It’s not your fault.”

Lucius squeezes her hand. “It’s not yours, either.”

Silence settles. From the corner of his eye, he can see Narcissa smiling sadly, the expression sparking a protective instinct that only ever seemed to rear its head in her presence. The youngest Black children pass by the door, too focused on their argument to spot Lucius and Narcissa sat together, never mind their conjoined hands. Narcissa waits until they’ve disappeared before she turns back to him.

“I’d say there’s an hour before something goes up in flames,” she says. Her sadness has been concealed, more of the girl he knows taking its place. “I know a route that will lead us to my room without getting caught.”

The proposition is clear, and it isn’t one Lucius has any desire to turn down. He doubts he ever will.

He stands and helps her up, flashing a smile reserved only for her. “Montre-moi le chemin.”

* * *

As it goes, they get an hour and a half before Narcissa’s personal elf ruins their fun with warnings; though nothing has seemingly been set on fire, it’s still obvious it’s time to leave. Lucius manages to slip out of her room without anyone seeing where he came from, one last fleeting kiss pressed to Narcissa’s cheek before they’re forced to part.

He finds his parents easily, step quick as he joins them at their hosts’ side.

“Mon fils,” his mother greets, hand touching his cheek.

Her eyes, again, are glassy, though this time for a different reason. Lucius spares his father a glance before he returns his gaze to his mother’s face. Not just glassy, he notes, but _vacant._ Controlled.

He knows the Imperius Curse when he sees it.

“Say goodnight to our hosts, Anaïs,” Abraxas says, the order concealed as gentle probing. His mother, expectantly, does as told.

Lucius follows suite, knowing better than to question his father’s authority. He shakes Cygnus’ hand with a firm grip. “A pleasure, Mr. Black…”

* * *

It’s not until they’ve arrived home that Lucius discovers what had prompted their departure. His mother, obviously, but in addition to that, Bellatrix: something about Muggle-hunting and trying to convince Anaïs to drink perfume.

“Mad woman, their eldest,” his father tells him over a glass of brandy. His mother has been put to bed, leaving them to sit in Abraxas’ study, his father smoking thick cigars as Lucius sits back and watches. “It seems the lot of them are losing it.”

Lucius hesitates, the urge to defend Narcissa pressing at his teeth. More than that, he’s been meaning to approach the topic for some time; long before there’d been any hint of Andromeda running off. If Abraxas decides now that the Blacks aren’t worth the effort, he won’t get the chance again.

He takes a sip of brandy, savouring the taste the way he’s been taught. “The youngest appears suitable,” he tries, not-quite meeting his father’s eye.

Abraxas gives him one sweeping glance and snorts. “No need to ask where _you_ were, then,” he says. There’s not as much disapproval as Lucius had thought there would be.

He considers it a win.

**Author's Note:**

>  _living a law just short of delusion / when we fall in love there’s confusion_ — **this must be the place i waited years to leave** , the pet shop boys. 
> 
> catch me at [tumblr](http://sistersblack.tumblr.com/) ♡


End file.
